Short Notes, 



Curious Nesting Place of Simotes Octolineatus. 



In September last an old Spathodea nilotica tree which 

 had been sickly for some time was cut down in the Botanic 

 Gardens. In breaking it up one bough was found to be full 

 of old borings of some longicorn beetle, and ensconced in 

 one of these tunnels was found a living female snake (Simotes 

 octolineatus) about a foot long which had already laid about a 

 dozen oblong eggs an inch long in the tunnel. The bough 

 was more than twenty feet from the ground, and the tree 

 was isolated and with a bare trunk so that the snake must 

 have climbed up the slightly roughened bark of the trunk. 

 There were several openings into the bough whence the 

 beetles had escaped and through one of these the little snake 

 must have entered the burrow. 



H. N. Bidley. 



Fertilization of Barringtonia. 



In Journal No. 41. *p. 124 a description of the fertiliza- 

 tion of Barringtonia racemosa was given. The moth described 

 as conveying the pollen to the stigma and so fertilizing the 

 flower has been identified by Sir George Harnpson _as Zethes 

 rufipennis Hampson. 



H. N. Bidley. 



Jour, Straite Branch R. A. Soc, No, 46. 190C. 



